Wikileads

Newsworthiness. Understanding it is essential to success in journalism.

Whoever decides which documents to release at Wikileaks has a solid understanding of newsworthiness. Take this recent upload. It’s an invoice for Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Defense, charging the country for a  shipment of Chinese rockets, bombs and rounds of mortar.

Most days this document might not draw much attention. It’s not unusual for Zimbabwe to buy arms, and it’s not unusual for China to sell them.

But this week the documents have a news peg. The Chinese ship carrying the rockets, bombs and rounds was not allowed to dock at numerous ports in southern Africa for fear of what its contents might mean for Zimbabweans. Even Angola, a country not known for a spotless human rights record, is refusing to let the goods get through.

So Wikileaks’ decision to release the invoices this week instead of a few weeks ago or a few months from now demonstrates that they’re highly attuned to the news value of the potentially damning documents in their massive database.

In this way they’re very much like a mainstream news source. They select their leaks carefully, releasing mostly documents that are relevant to current controversies (Tibet, Iraq, Guantanamo) or data that could draw interest because they reveal wrongdoing by big, secretive mega-organizations (Scientology, banks, armies).

Very much like mainstream journalism. A little bit sensational, a little bit anti-establishment. Or at least skillful marketers who are serious about their duties as whistleblowers.